Writes Stuff …Sometimes.

Tag Archives: identity

This is an entry I’ve wanted to write for a long time and that has been stewing. In order to get this right, I’ve done a lot of reading and traded discussions with several friends, both male and female, to really let my ideas ferment. What I don’t want to talk about is women, although it will come up. I feel that the feminists have a whole host of great literature providing ample arguments for how the design of our social structure and our cultural paradigms have acted to enforce — at a sub-liminal and pervasively quiet manner — a model of masculine superiority and feminine submission. As a man, even a man of a visible ethnic minority, there are certain privileges I enjoy that I cannot even see; it is not in my ability to speak on the female condition in our culture. Plenty of writers before me — male and female — can do a better job of that.

But I can speak on masculinity and manhood.

The issue of masculinity is multi-faceted and this may ultimately become a series, but I’m going to try to present — at a high level — my thoughts on how the social design of traditional masculinity has affected manhood. The discussion of masculinity in gender studies is starting to come to light to a far greater degree than it ever has before, but this is in part to anti-feminist “Men’s Rights Movement” advocating for a reclamation of manhood in the post-feminist world.

Well, they’re right. Manhood is under attack, but it’s not feminism hurting us. It’s them. It’s the patriarchy. We’ve gotten to a point where masculinity has been perverted and rendered into a caricature of what testosterone represents.

The masculine paradigm codifies as follows:

You must be strong and strong means that you do not show your emotions

Rage and aggression are the only appropriate negative emotions to display publicly

There can be no sign of weakness; man up, damn it!

You must be self-sufficient; asking for help is looked down upon, especially asking for emotional support or advice

Displays of affection for your significant other are mildly acceptable, but it is far superior to openly regard her as a piece of meat more often to your other male buddies

The take-away is this:

If you are hurting or troubled, you are alone.

If you need help, you are weak.

What you feel does not matter to anyone and you should be ashamed of having them

…and here is where it breaks down. The traditional model of masculinity raises boys in a culture of shame. Can it be any wonder that men are now afraid it is the end-times for manhood? For both men and women, the heteronormative paradigm has reinforced a host of self-image dysmorphia. The thing is that self-image dysmorphia is a type of performance anxiety; it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with how you want to appear to others.

Sexuality is a performance that seeks validation from others. Masculinity is a performance for the approval of other men. Michael Kimmel writes that “masculinity is a homosocial experience.” It is because of this type of competitive sexual performance (each man trying to “out-man” the other in a race for a higher status tier) that we have delineated so far from a model of masculinity that is beneficial to everyone.

Ultimately, maschismo is hurting men.

For evidence, we need look no further than this single Reddit post where men all over the world are chiming in with their frustrations with the current perception of manhood. It is not difficult to see how destructive this model of masculinity has become:

Asking for help means you aren’t “manning up” like everything in culture silently tells you to do. And so everything that isn’t addressed becomes that dark beast inside you, lurking at the edges.

Masculinity is a deeply misunderstood concept, almost as if on purpose. Misunderstood by society as a whole, but also by women and,most offensively, by the men themselves.

we’ve been brainwashed into thinking behavior such as this therefore labels us as a “pussy” when in fact it’s inherent Human behavior to express opinions and talk about how they feel.

In this interview with feminist writer Jessica Valenti, she mentions how Lakshmi Chaudhry wrote of the current “model of masculinity being perpetual adolescence.” It is difficult to not see the point or nod emphatically in agreement. This is a dangerous modality where men no longer know how to be men; we haven’t learned. There has been no one to teach us and we resort like teenagers into petty one-up-manships and view any challenge or criticism to be an affront to our self-image and our very concept of manhood.

Bodybuilding writer T.C. Luoma, in this heart-wrenching article about masculinity (excuse the sexist language, I am absolutely sure he does that because it makes his audience listen), advocates for a distinction between masculinity (which he defines as the characteristics derived from testosterone on a chemical/hormonal level) and manhood (the cultural definition of what it means to be a man) in that manhood should be a tempered version of masculinity:

It’s been my experience that the raw masculine qualities of Testosterone need to be transformed and channeled into manhood, which is largely based on being protective, altruistic, and heroic. Manhood, perhaps counter intuitively, also draws on certain feminine traits like empathy, cooperation, and the ability to support and nurture.

[Manhood] must be tied to responsibility, but maybe we’d better define responsibility: taking care of your body, your health, the people and animals that you love, and showing a caring attitude towards society, the environment, and to life itself.

In short, a model of masculinity that does not take into account the tempering of aggressive qualities through more “feminine” qualities like compassion will ultimately lead us (and has led us) into male behavioral patterns that are destructive. The resolution might be to to pattern a new model of masculinity, although it can be difficult to determine what masculinity should look like, how it might be possible for a model of masculinity to exist that takes into account the deconstructions of the traditional model. Anna North makes a good case for why men don’t need to codify a new model:

[D]o men need, in addition, “a positive, masculine gender identity?” It’s something of a strange concept — few feminists would ever say that women needed “a positive, feminine gender identity.” While plenty of women take pride in being female, “femininity” is so loaded with patriarchal expectation that, for feminists, it’s kind of a dirty word. This may not be a bad thing — in fact, I’d argue that “masculine” should go the same way.

I’m not sure if I agree with her assessment, but it is clear from this and the dozens of articlespopping up lately touting the “end of men” and the “decline of masculinity” that something is wrong with our current model of manhood. It cannot stand side-by-side with a model of womanhood that is determined to seek out equal rights; it is by its nature oppressive, juvenile, and harmful.

The dialogue needs to be opened up about the male identity, possibly a new masculinity, a deconstruction of the traditional model and how silently, but grievously, destructive it is. Luckily, there is a New Masculinity movement. Some very intelligent men and women are beginning to write and speak out about the issue of manhood and performing deconstructive analyses on the heteronormative gender roles with respect to how it affects the male identity. This is a discourse in which we must participate, in league with feminism, to usher in an era of equal standing.

At a powerlifting meet last year, I went 8/9 in attempts. For those not in the know, that means of the nine attempts I made, I missed two of them. It was my third squat attempt at 380lbs. My original plan was 375, a number I had gotten a few times before in the gym. I didn’t cut weight for this meet, my training had been going really well and I smashed my second squat at 365. What’s five extra pounds?

I went down. And on the way up, my ass flew up into the air while my head, neck, and shoulders stayed glued where they were. Spotters caught the bar and that was that. No lift. This was so memorable that an older lifter, six months later, approached me at Nationals to retell the story to my girlfriend at the time. The rest of the meet, though, went amazingly. My third and heaviest bench press flew off my chest faster than the first attempts. In deadlift, I was pulling more than the equipped lifters in my weight class. Their jaws hung loose watching me.

I went away with first place in 165 Raw, happy with my performance. But not satisfied. People are always telling me how they’re surprised that every powerlifter they meet is extremely humble. It’s because we’re trained to be. We’re trained to realize that we suck, we’re weak, and no matter how strong we get, it’s not strong enough. The very culture enforces this: never be satisfied with yourself.

I’m not saying to not be happy, with your life or your identity or your present state. But satisfaction is different. Being happy with yourself and your accomplishments is natural and healthy. It’s a celebration of who you are, which is all this blog is about. Being satisfied with yourself, though, implies that there’s nothing left to improve.

A co-worker once asked me why I’m pursuing an MFA in creative writing. He said, “It’s a skill you already have. Wouldn’t it be more pragmatic to pursue a skill or knowledge set that you don’t?” It’s an admirable point of view, but I think it misses the point. Just because I have the skill to write doesn’t mean that I write as well as I want to. No matter how good you are at something, there is always room to grow. People who will never be satisfied with where they are will always pursue growth. Never stop learning. Never stop growing.

If you believe in something, if there is a practice that contributes to your definition of yourself, I feel like the only thing you must do — the thing you are compelled to do — is pursue mastery over it until the sun winks out of existence. Anything less is cheating yourself.

I’ve decided that it’s about time I started a personal blog, not necessarily as a matter of ego-stroking and self-congratulations. See, I’ve had this idea for a long time now to start something between friends and I called A Matter of Metal and Masculinity. I’m a big fan of the comedic writing of T.C. Luoma, who occasionally writes articles for the bodybuilding e-zine T-Nation. He always has some hilarious but poignant things to say about what masculinity and manhood mean today, how the definition is changing, why men are losing touch with who we’re supposed to be.

See, manhood seems to be split down the middle these days: hyper-masculine, aggressive, dumb brutes or overly emotional sissy boys combing over-waxed hair and wearing ball-suffocating skinny jeans. And this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. TC made some great points in his most recent article, namely that rage and aggression need to be tempered with compassion. The things that make a strong man are the same that make a strong woman.

I believe wholeheartedly in the feminist movement. We live in a day and age where women are fast becoming more educated than men, but are still getting paid less. That’s absurd, plain and simple. But the feminist movement is growing. It keeps moving forward, which is beautiful. The problem is that masculinity shouldn’t be repressed as a result. You know what happens next? We end up with a culture that produces a million man-children running around with no clue how to direct their aggression or desires. We end up with men who’re emotionally unavailable, who lack introspection, who lack the ability to progress the way women currently are.

But this blog, right here, isn’t supposed to be about masculinity. I wanted a personal blog to discuss living the writer’s life. I wanted to discuss me: a writer, characteristically sensitive and emotional, and a testosterone-fueled athlete, characteristically angry. I don’t believe manhood excludes femininity. A strong man and a strong woman share all the same traits.

It became clear to me that the theme of this blog is identity: what it means to be a writer (rejections by the hundreds), what it means to be a man, what it means to be a person. And so my title came: The blog is a matter of Self.

So far, it’s pretty bare-bones. But I hope you enjoy the musings as they come along.